For The Universe Abhors Our Love
by TheMotherDragon
Summary: The Vampire Diaries is the story of Damon and Elena falling in love. This is my take on the relevant mile stones of their relationship throughout the series from Elena's point of view. And the frightening conclusion that it leads to. Their love is a destructive force. Will it obliterate everything in their wake? Rated M because I curse impulsively.
1. Prologue

Prologue

There is a certain comfort that can come from being loved by a dangerous man.

The strangest feeling of security, of safety that can't be attained in any other circumstance, with any other person. It's the incredible power and brutality of their darkness, their reckless destructive impulse, their wicked and violent tendencies, that can surround you in a truly unexpected shroud of pure light.

It's without question the craziest of all paradoxes that I've encountered in my short, yet eventful nineteen years.

Safety in the midst of danger. It shouldn't be possible. The very notion of danger implies fear, uncertainty, anxiety, chaos, and thousands of other debilitating emotional complexes.

But I've felt it myself. I've experienced the unorthodox and vastly inappropriate nature of a darkness that can spawn the most magnificent kind of solace.

Yes I am intimately familiar with this phenomena. I've been the primary focus of such attentions for almost three years now. The singular priority of a man with the most horrific of pasts and the darkest of incentives who loves me more intensely and viciously than any man has ever loved a woman.

My name is Elena Gilbert. I'm a young vampire, living in Mystic Falls, Virginia. My hometown. The site and source of every tragedy that has ever befallen me in just under two decades of life.

And I am the true love of one Damon Salvatore. The eldest of the two Salvatore brothers.

The black sheep. The disappointment. The monster. The Augustine vampire.

The foil in the universe's grand design.

But most importantly, my safety and happiness in this wild supernatural world that I was so unceremoniously thrust into when I was seventeen.

He is a host of twisted and terrible things. He's everything I never wanted, everything I tried so hard to run from, to deny at every turn with every possible excuse.

It was all for naught. I fell in love with him anyway. Despite his flaws, his endless mistakes, his horrible choices. I am just as painfully, powerfully, passionately in love with this man as he is with me.

Which is how we got here in the first place. Because he fell in love with me, and I with him.

Had we never succumbed to the manic, untamable fire that burns between us we would never have wound up in this impossible position.

I would never be standing by this accursed quarry, poised with a stake above his heart, looking into the fathomless oceanic depths of his eyes.

It begs just two questions: how did we get ourselves into such a mess? And what the hell am I going to do to get us out of it?


	2. Chaos Reigns

For any of you who have steadfastly stuck with my tumblr posts about this majestic ship, you will recognize some of these titles, scenes and themes as things I have discussed at length during my marathon episodic synthesis.

That is by design.

As an homage to the trademark parallels that brilliantly encompass Damon and Elena's relationship, as well as their shared soul, I am paralleling the scenes I've chosen with the posts I've already written. And it will all factor into the climax I am building towards.

Cheer m'dears.

**Chapter One: Chaos Reigns **

"With soul mates, you get together and everything is perfect. With a twin flame, there is chaos."

Looking back, it is damn near impossible for me to pinpoint how this all started. There are far too many moments, even from the very beginning when he was still pining for _her_, that could easily be to blame for the inception of this insanity.

I can't tell you how we wound up on this road. All I know is I woke up one day and I found myself on an express train heading straight for Damon. My heart and soul spun far out of my control long before I ever realized it was happening.

He has that effect on people after all.

He draws you in continuously, no matter how you fight it or what walls you erect to keep him at a distance.

Or perhaps its only me that is unable to stay away. Perhaps I'm the only one with this debilitating weakness for Damon Salvatore.

Then again, he shares the same weakness for me. We're kindred spirits in that way. In many ways actually.

It took me a long time to figure it out, to come to terms with precisely why Stefan was not enough for me once I 'grew into myself' after the transition. I wondered for months what the breaking point had been for us. Because I didn't believe for a second that it was all due to my feelings for Damon.

I knew there were other forces at work, other things that had manifested to draw Stefan and I apart and Damon and I together. It wasn't the sire bond. It wasn't Stefan's temporary emotionless state and the ensuing harm it had caused me while Klaus had him under compulsion. It wasn't even Damon himself, regardless of what Stefan might think.

It was me. There was something different about me. Fundamentally, down in the depths of my soul.

I've always been told I have fire. That I'm strong and brave and fierce. A fighter.

And I seemed to blaze more brilliantly than ever once I became a vampire. It brought out things in me that I assumed were either long buried, or had never existed at all. It opened doors of wild, reckless impulses and dark, surprisingly seductive desires that scared and thrilled me in equal measure.

In some ways, it brought out the Damon in me. The parts of myself that are similar to him.

I suppose as a new vampire I was relatively the same as he might have been when he first transitioned in 1864. Before heartache, anger, bitterness, captivity, torture, and years of an emotionless existence corrupted him and made him something he isn't. A much harsher and more cynical soul than he was ever meant to be.

With a beautiful, loving heart like his its a wonder he's even survived all this tragedy and anguish in his life. I really just have to marvel at how strong he truly is for coming out the other side of physical and psychological torment intact.

Damon Salvatore is a survivor. Without question. And so am I.

It is something that bonded us quite impressively from the outset. Our willingness to fight and fight hard, no matter the sacrifice or the consequences.

Its a quality of his that I both admire and revile.

Admire, because his strength is inspiring and empowering. It lets me know that I can survive too, even when it seems like all hope is lost.

Revile, because his strength has consistently put me between the rock and the hard place. Because these days, when Damon fights, he's fighting for me. For my safety or my happiness or my life in general.

And sometimes its against my wishes. In a manner that I don't accept, that goes against everything I believe in, that makes me question every principle I have.

That's really how it started with us if I'm being completely honest. It was the fighting.

Damon didn't just have to fight others to keep me alive. More often than not, he had to fight me. And before he embraced his self-proclaimed role as my 'bad guy' protector with no boundaries, we fought about other things. About the nature of his decisions.

It always comes down to the nature of his decisions.

Like how he turned Vicki for absolutely no reason at all. A horrible, unnecessary decision that put her in a position she simply couldn't handle. A decision that ultimately killed her.

And I remember in crystal clear detail how outraged I was because of it.

I'd never encountered a person who could be so detached, so infuriatingly aloof about his every choice, regardless of the negative impact it could have on others. His behavior, and the attitude that he carried with it, confounded me. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand him.

He turned my world upside down.

Not just because he was so unlike anyone I had ever met. But because he also managed to completely negate his entire 'bad boy' persona without even realizing it.

For every truly horrific thing he did, there was something shockingly good and human and even selfless that followed.

It started small. He was just getting his humanity back. He couldn't be expected to jump right in with actions that confirmed he was capable of being better. It was only whispers at first. Things no one else really noticed except for me. Because from the beginning I was determined to find the good in him. Wherever it was hiding, I intended to draw it out if I could.

Those good intentions came back to haunt me.

My constant poking and prodding at Damon's newly resurrected humanity actually made me the key to it. He's never said one way or the other, but I know I'm the reason he turned it back on. Just like I know I'm the reason he was able to move on from Katherine so quickly after she put his heart in a blender.

I did wonder in the back of my head at the time why he didn't just fall back into the numbness after she hurt him so. After she shattered his world. I assumed it was because he wanted to feel the pain so he wouldn't try to seek her out sometime later on. So he wouldn't ever be made a fool of like that again.

But in truth, I know it was me. I know I kept him from flipping that switch. I don't know why, or how, but something about my presence in his life seemed to have a direct link to his emotions, and the abstract button that could have wiped them all away if he so desired.

And then, like an unanticipated lightning strike during the aftershocks of the storm, he fell in love with me.

I never saw it coming. I know he didn't either.

I wonder what did it. Which increasingly tension-filled moment of ours even brought him to that edge, even put me in a position to secure the throne in Damon Salvatore's heart.

Was it the face slap at the football game, after he'd tried to compel me to kiss him?

Was it our conversation in my kitchen, when I apologized for his pain over losing Katherine, never mind the fact that I didn't know anywhere near the whole story, or that she wasn't even lost?

Was it that second face slap, at the Halloween party after Stefan staked Vicki?

Was it the night I saved his life in Georgia, pleading with Lexi's boyfriend not to set him on fire?

Was it the hug I gave him in the cemetery, after his world fell apart in the bowels of that wretched tomb, at the hands of an infinitely more wretched and heartless woman?

Part of me wants to know. Wants to ask him boldly and brazenly when things started to change between he and I, at least from his perspective. When he started to see me as someone of real import in his life, rather than just a chess piece in his century long Stefan mind fuck.

The other part of me enjoys the mystery of it. Because looking back on those moments from my own vantage point, it's exciting to even consider that any one of those moments could have been a moment that he started to see me in a new light. That he started to fall in love with me.

Maybe it was all those moments combined.

Maybe while I was cursing his presence in Mystic Falls and questioning my sanity for letting him anywhere near me and fearing for my life and the lives of those I loved, he was falling for me a little more every day.

Its flattering. Its terrifying. Its exhilarating.

It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to scream.

Most of all, it makes me want to kiss him.


	3. Since I've Met You

Their second 'first' meeting. It seemed like the appropriate place to begin Elena's flashbacks.

Cheers m'dears.

**Chapter Two: Since I've Met You **

"The world went from black and white and into color when I laid eyes on you, my love. There'll be no going back."

It was that day at the boarding house. The day that I thought we met for the first time.

That day that he kissed my hand.

It set things in motion. Not that we had anyway of knowing what we'd just done.

How we'd just given the universe the finger for, apparently, the second time.

I can recall it in perfect, technicolor detail. Like a scene from a movie I've watched a thousand times.

I remember being so impressed and slightly intimidated by the sheer size of their mansion the first time I pulled up to the driveway. I'd come there looking for Stefan, wondering where he'd disappeared too earlier in the day. Yet I found myself getting side tracked by how magnificent the house was just on the outside.

That's to say nothing of the inside.

Once the door seemed to open of its accord (leave it to Damon to be all deceptive and nefarious by making me think I was seeing things when the door opened for me like magic), I was struck by the opulence of the interior. The massive living room was like a ballroom in its own right. It was practically the size of the entire first floor of my house.

It was just beautiful. Like an old-fashioned manor in the countryside. The ones where each room has its own special name and purpose, straight from a Jane Austen novel or something.

Why am I even surprised that this is where Damon and I met for the 'first' time.

In hindsight it's like some sort of sign of what was to come between us. Because that room has just been so relevant to us. We've been through so much, and it all seems to center around that living room, near that fireplace.

It was one of the first things I noticed when Damon escorted me into the room from the foyer.

The fireplace.

Huge, ornate and silent in the grate, it called for your attention immediately. Like a moth to a flame.

It has been a reticent witness to so many monumental moments between Damon and I.

Starting with that kiss on my hand.

"You must be Elena. I'm Damon, Stefan's brother."

He sounded so confident, so self-assured and cocksure, like he held the control of the room. I was so taken aback by the overwhelming force of his mere presence. How this massive house didn't seem quite so massive because he saturated every crevice of it. Like it conformed and molded to him, bending to the muted will of his very being.

His eyes held me prisoner, captive in the wave of a brilliant blue storm framed by impossibly beautiful black eyelashes that exactly matched the stark raven's black of his wild sex hair.

And you better believe in the back of my head the words 'wild sex hair' actually floated across the recesses of my addled brains.

The power that radiated from him, from his compelling eyes and that knowing smirk, had me taking a step back just to attempt coherent speech.

As is Damon's custom, he crowded me right from the get. The moment I turned from the mysteriously shut front door and practically crashed into him he didn't even flinch. He stayed within a foot of me while I tried to regain my equilibrium in this unfamiliar situation that had me much more rattled than I cared to admit.

Which had been his intention of course. He meant to throw me off kilter. It was his way of asserting control of the situation. Even more than he naturally possessed just by being in the room.

"He didn't tell me he had a brother."

"Well, Stefan's not one to brag."

What does one even say to such an arrogant statement as that. I floundered like a fish out of water in the face of those words. Thankfully he took the smallest of mercies on me and led me into the living room, saving me from having to formulate some response. Like telling him Stefan should be bragging since the man standing in front of me was beyond gorgeous.

And obviously exceedingly pompous. Lucky for him he wears it well. Otherwise it would make him unattractive. If such a thing is possible that is.

"Wow. This is your living room."

"Living room. Parlor. Seventies auction. It's a little kitschy for my taste."

I registered his snark — something so classically Damon that now it brings me untold comfort to hear his unabashed sarcasm — but I refused to form an opinion about this stranger who happened to be Stefan's older brother until I had more information. I'm not one to rush to judgment about people.

Unfortunately the way Damon carries himself makes it hard to not form certain assumptions instantly.

"I can see why my brother's so smitten."

Typical Damon. A subtle yet not so subtle compliment.

Damon isn't the type to come right out and say 'you're beautiful' or anything so common and cliche. Knowing him as I do now it seems a little beneath him. He doesn't need to mince words and butter you up with flattery. And if he does feel the need to be complimentary he does it in such a way that its phrased like a natural part of a conversation rather than an abrupt change in topic where the only acceptable response is 'thank you.'

He simply interjects it into the dialogue like its the most natural thing in the world. And then carries on with the conversation completely nonplussed.

"You say it like every relationship is doomed to end."

"I'm a fatalist."

I wish I'd taken that more to heart at the time. Really appreciated what that statement from him really meant, how it was so indicative of his mindset regarding himself and his potential for finding happiness.

Perhaps if I had then the circumstances of our break up wouldn't have even existed. I might have been able to head them off, to keep the terrible events that led to the temporary implosion of our romance from ever coming to pass. It may not have all been in my control, but if I'd taken more time to assure Damon that we didn't have an expiration date he might not have jumped to so many damaging conclusions about himself and about us at the first signs of trouble.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're welcome anytime. Isn't she Stefan?"

I registered the tension between them. The way Stefan looked so anxious and furious that Damon was standing so close to me. The way Damon didn't seem to give two shits how Stefan felt about it.

"It was nice to meet you Damon."

"Great meeting you too Elena."

I should've paid more attention to that unexplained spark that ran like an electrical current beneath the surface of my skin when Damon grabbed my hand and kissed it. All the while looking at me with those equally electric eyes.

I swear the world disappeared for just one second.

For that brief moment of physical contact my world was only him. He was all I saw, all I heard, all I felt.

And it was just my hand grasped gently but firmly within his as a gesture of farewell. A simple, chivalrous kiss on the hand, a romantic relic from a time decades past.

It set a flurry of wild butterflies through my stomach. Which confused the ever living hell out of me.

Especially since Stefan was right there, watching the whole thing.

Nothing about it felt romantic at the time. I was just incredibly flattered and surprised by his gentlemanly attentions. It would've felt out of place and out of character if anyone else had done that after meeting me. But for some reason with Damon it felt so natural.

I had no way of knowing that meant I was already a goner.


	4. The Lover's Waltz

Okay from this point on I will be alternating between Elena reflecting on how she reached the point in her relationship with Damon that we will be at when they are standing by the quarry and Elena one month before the events of the prologue so you can see why she's about to stake him. Don't be confused by the time jumps. It has a purpose that you'll understand when the flashbacks and the climax finally line up.

Cheers m'dears.

**Chapter Three: The Lover's Waltz**

"I'll sing to you of silver swans, of kingdoms and carillons. I'll sing of bodies intertwined underneath an innocent sky."

I don't actually remember my first dance with Stefan. It passed by in a blur, got lost in the fray of bigger moments that seemed to come one after the other, swiftly as our love did.

But I remember my first dance with Damon like it happened yesterday. Like it happened five minutes ago even.

Because that wasn't just any dance. It felt so much more significant than that. More intimate.

Descending those stairs in the Lockwood Mansion, my heart was in my throat, my stomach twisted in all kinds of knots. Why was I here? What was I doing in this pageant? This wasn't me anymore. I shouldn't be here.

Those feelings only crescendoed into blind panic when I saw that Stefan wasn't waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. As if this moment wasn't traumatizing enough without me being escort-less when it counted.

The breathe blew out of my lungs in a mad rush when Damon smoothly darted to the foot of the stairs to step in for Stefan. He looked up at me with so much… Devotion. Like he'd follow me anywhere, wait for me at the bottom of a thousand staircases if only to spare me some embarrassment.

I felt the room disappear again for the briefest second when he took my hand as I reached the bottom. The whole move — him taking my hand, raising it up like a proud offering to the gods, showing me off to the crowd — had heat rushing through my body. Not in embarrassment though.

In humble gratitude.

He didn't have to do this, to step up and take Stefan's place. It wasn't his responsibility just because his brother was presently unreliable. I wasn't his responsibility.

As if he cared about any of that. Sparing me discomfort was all the mattered.

The dance itself was more akin to a lover's waltz. A series of come hither gestures and touches that could easily have been a prelude to an embrace of a much more intimate nature.

I shouldn't have been affected by it. I was dating his brother. I was in love with his brother.

Why, then, did the look in his eyes set me on fire. Why did the room disappear around us, creating a solitary dance floor across which we carried out a beautiful tradition that spoke to us on a profound level, that united us in a tangible way we could never take back.

It was just a dance for gods sake.

But his touch… His hand at the small of my back, his other folded around mine as though it was the missing piece, the companion to my own. The scant amount of space between us felt like miles and centimeters simultaneously. He was much too far and yet much too close. His presence was suffocating me and uplifting me all at once.

And his eyes. They remained laser focused on me the entire duration of the song. He barely blinked. He simply looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time.

I think I looked at him the same way. I certainly felt like I was seeing him for the first time.

He'd never looked like this before. His face had lost all of that arrogance and disinterest. He was wholly invested in this moment, entirely present, so much so that making a mockery of it with his perpetually amused features was out of the question. He took it too seriously.

I was shocked. I was relieved.

I was so damn confused.

Not just by his reaction, but by mine. I wouldn't call it attraction necessarily, but it was something close to it. It was a yearning for something more with him. Something that was far out of the bounds of the friendship we were supposed to have.

I don't think I wanted him. I think I needed him. I needed his solid, firm strength beside me. It felt absolutely essential that he just be there with me.

Not the most appropriate reaction to have to your boyfriend's brother.

Still that didn't mean I felt something for Damon. Things would never be romantic between us. They couldn't be. It went against everything I knew to be true about myself and my life.

I was so blind. I didn't pick up on the trajectory of our too affectionate friendship until it was too late. Until I was already falling madly in love with him.

And by then, fighting it was pointless. He'd wrestled his way into the cracks of my heart, taken up residence in the portions carved from my sorrow and fear.

Why did he have to wait at the foot of those damn stairs. Ten seconds of embarrassment would've fallen away in my memories in contrast to the tornado of true horrors that have colored the last few years for me. I could've survived being abandoned by my boyfriend, not participating in the dance, withdrawing from the pageant.

I can't survive without him though. He's made sure of that. He took my hand, led me across a dance floor and held me in his arms when I wasn't his to hold, when my heart belonged to another. Locked me in his penetrating cerulean gaze as we shut the world out and waltzed comfortably and gracefully to a song about love making the heart a better place.

And now his hand is gently gripping mine as I press the tip of a stake painfully close to the skin feebly protecting his heart, his eyes boring into mine with the same passion and devotion they held during that dance. Almost like he's telling me everything will be okay. Like he did during the pageant.

But I know what will happen if that stake breaches the wall and pierces his heart, takes his life, causes grotesque grayish veins of death to course along the surface of his skin.

I know nothing will ever be okay again.


	5. Be Relentless With Your Passion

This chapter is the first that isn't a flashback. This falls in the time frame of the story itself leading up to the events at the quarry. It takes place four days after Damon and Elena's friend break up in 5x18. My narrative is strictly within the canon up until that point. Everything after is from my own imagination. Including the plans the travelers have and how they carry them out. This is strictly my interpretation on how this story line could proceed.

As a reminder, the next chapter will be another flashback to earlier in the series through the narration of future Elena reflecting on her history with Damon.

Cheers m'dears.

**Chapter Four: Be Relentless With Your Passion **

"Hearts are wild creatures, that's why our ribs are cages."

Fucking travelers.

What the hell do they want from me? From Stefan? Why do they need us to be together for this stupid spell of theirs to work? Shouldn't it be enough that they stole a bucket of blood from each of us?

I really hate being a doppelgänger.

Of everything and everyone in my life that has ever caused me any pain or brought me any trouble, nothing has wreaked more havoc on us all then that. Just because I look like Katherine. And Amara. And a thousand other nameless women over the millennia who happen to share my face.

The weight of that responsibility, the burden that it puts on me is something I struggle with daily. Its brought me nothing but misery. Its killed most of my family, its stolen life and innocence from my friends, its forced me to question my sanity and my identity far too many times.

If Katherine had never come to town I likely wouldn't have had such an issue with it. Because it could have remained an abstract notion, something only certain people knew. I looked like her. Fine. At least I didn't have to be confronted by it directly.

As if. Of course she had to crash into town and impersonate me and kill Caroline in her hospital bed and chop off Uncle John's fingers and devastate Damon so terribly that he showed up in my room only to drunkenly snap my little brother's neck.

That seems like a different life now. Like it happened to someone else. It's been over two years after all. None of us are those people that Katherine used and abused for her own ends when she showed up unannounced. We've all had to change to survive. Everything had to change.

Caroline isn't the only vampire now. I've transitioned too. We've learned to make the best of it, to roll with the bloodlust and heightened emotions and constant urge to kill. In fact I'd say we've both handled it well. We're functional. Stable. Happy even.

Bonnie is a ghost. And the anchor to the other side. Which is currently falling apart. Because obviously I'm not the travelers' only target. Things can never be that simple in Mystic Falls.

Jeremy is a twice-resurrected supernaturally enhanced vampire hunter. He actually poses the largest threat to the travelers. They can't get inside his head. They can't possess him. And he's physically more adept than all of them.

Matt is the only remaining human amongst us. He isn't supernatural at all. And if it wasn't for the Gilbert family ring he'd be long dead because of it. But he's adapted spectacularly to this less than ideal situation he's found himself in.

Tyler is the last of Klaus's hybrids. No longer with Caroline and no longer seeking vengeance against Klaus, I get the feeling he's drifting in a strange sort of limbo. Like he's on the cusp of something big that is just out of reach.

Stefan is the same as ever, and yet nothing like he was. Apart from myself I'd say Stefan has probably changed the most over the years. He's darker and tougher than when he first came to town. He's embraced more of his nature, even successfully stuck to a diet of human blood for the better part of eighteen months.

He and I have finally come to a place of understanding and friendship. Any lingering tension from our break up during senior year has dissipated. Now we can finally be friends and move on without worrying about how the other might be feeling. We're long past being in love. All that remains is easy, affectionate love. The kind that can't be mistaken for anything romantic.

Even with all the frustration and confusion surrounding the travelers' current plans for Stefan and I, my relationship with him is presently on much more stable ground than the one I have with Damon.

Damon has cut me off. Refused to even indulge a friendship with me. He said it's too difficult to be around me now. For the first time in the three years since Damon waltzed into town I feel like I have no connection to him. We aren't strangers getting to know each other because we have his brother in common. We aren't friends trying to navigate the shadowy parts of morality and unrequited love. We aren't lovers ready to brave any obstacle to prove that our love can conquer all.

We're nothing right now. Because it hurts him to be around me when we can't be together.

We don't talk. We don't see each other. I'm pretty sure no one dares mention my name to him if it can be helped. If it weren't for the present traveler threat I actually think he might have left the town altogether.

Which is how I've found myself sitting at the foot of the dock behind my family's lake house. Staring across the clear rippling waters of the lake into an indistinguishable distance, he's all I can think about.

It's been four days since we last spoke. Four days since he told me to leave him be, that a friendship was impossible for us.

_No Elena I can't be your friend. It's too damn hard._

_I don't wanna hear you voice, I don't wanna talk to you, I don't even wanna look at you. _

It took every ounce of strength I didn't even know I possessed not to break down when he said that. He'd never said anything of the sort to me before. He'd never not wanted to be around me no matter how bad things had gotten between us.

The thousandth in a series of traitorous tears makes its way down my cheek as I replay that conversation in my head for the dozenth time.

Part of me wishes I had done something or said something to convince him that we didn't have to sever ties completely just because we were broken up. Stefan and I had maintained a friendship after we ended things. Matt and I developed an even closer friendship then we ever had previously after I called it off at the end of sophomore year. Sure there was some initial awkwardness but we'd made it work. We'd managed to cope with being near each other despite the uncomfortable nature of the situation.

But I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised that things aren't like that with Damon. Nothing with Damon and I could ever resemble anything between myself and anyone else. What he and I have can't be totally explained, can't be quantified or understood or denied. It defies rationale and principle and expectation and everything else in the world I tried to use to justify fighting my feelings for him for so long.

What Damon and I have just is. It will never go away. It's always been there and it always will be.

And apparently that's why we can't be friends.

_I sure as hell don't wanna be your friend. _

Those words still make me flinch. Not because he said them with any kind of malice or contempt. But because that was how this had all started with he and I. We'd fallen in love over the course of our unorthodox friendship. And now that we'd succumbed and been together and it hadn't worked out we couldn't just return to how it had been before.

Objectively I do understand where he's coming from. I sympathize completely and I don't like the discomfort and uncertainty between us anymore than he does. But I'm willing to put up with it just to see his face, to feel the rigid undeniable strength of his presence, to hear the tender way his voice wraps around my name like he's speaking a foreign language.

I don't know why my names sounds so different when it comes from Damon but it does. No one says 'Elena' like he does. No matter the tone or the circumstances it always carries a particular weight filled with limitless emotion. I can generally tell how Damon is feeling by how he pronounces my name.

When he's angry it sounds disjointed and drawn out because when he fights he gets sarcastic and condescending and demanding.

When he's sad it sounds like a plea for comfort and acceptance that I want more than anything to give him just to erase that desperation.

When he's flirting it seems to raise up and down like the lilt his eyebrows make when he smirks and makes some inappropriate innuendo.

When he's seducing me it somehow carries every facet of need he has for me and every ounce of sexual prowess and control he harbors all at the same time.

When he's happy it sounds like songbirds ringing in the early morning or nightingales heralding the twilight of the evening.

When he tells me he loves me it sounds like a statement of pure fact, like I'm the only woman in existence and all he sees is me and therefore my name is all he knows.

That one is my favorite. He never did tell me 'I love you' very often. I can recall every time he gave voice to the words with perfect clarity. But he didn't need to say it. He still doesn't.

Because I know. I feel it, even now, when things are so broken between us. He's proved it to me a hundred times over. His actions speak much louder than any profession of love ever could. The way he touches me, kisses me, looks at me, speaks to me, even smiles at me. They all scream 'I love you.'

And more than all of that is just the way his voice caresses the three syllables in my name. They sound just like he's telling me he loves me and he needs me and he wants me.

_Listen to us. This is toxic. We are in a toxic relationship Elena. _

I know he's right. I do. But even as he said that our relationship can never work all I heard was 'I love you more than life and death and every terrible choice I've ever made or will make.' It's all in my name. If he hadn't said my name during that fight I might have been able to muster up the tiniest bit of self control and not fallen into bed with him after I told him we were done.

_Then we agree. This has to end. _

I may have agreed with him but hearing those words from his mouth broke something inside me. And I was already shattered from everything else that had happened. I had no solid ground to stand on. I needed something familiar to remind myself that I was here and Katherine hadn't succeeded in taking over my life or killing me with a fatal ripper virus.

I needed tangible proof that I was back in my own body, in my own life. In the boarding house. With Damon. The second safest place I know.

But second safest just wasn't cutting it. I needed more or I was going to spiral all over again.

And when he kissed me and blew the door wide open for me to find solace and security in the safest place in the world — in his arms — there was no part of me that thought to deny it.

I was so caught up in the glorious passionate familiarity of his kisses and the feelings they arouse in me that I have no memory of how we got to the bedroom. I simply remember him laying me down on that comforter he'd had before I moved in with him. And following with me like an ounce of separation would have killed him in that moment.

He was everywhere. In me, around me, on top of me, behind me, beneath me. He was all five senses. Everything I felt and saw and heard and smelled and tasted was Damon.

It felt so much like coming home. Break up sex or not he consumed me just as he always does.

I never once thought to stop it. How could I when I needed him so.

When he sat up to remove his already ripped shirt I was gone. My eyes zeroed in on the delicious expanse of his chest and the powerful muscles of his arms. I found myself reaching for his belt before he'd even disposed of the shirt.

Until he reached down and grabbed the folds of my sweater with both hands. I didn't even hesitate. My hands fell back of their own accord to grant him all the access he wished as he tore open the buttons.

And then I practically leapt up to meet him halfway and cement my lips to his.

Even just kissing Damon is adequate foreplay. The man has a true gift with his mouth.

I wanted him naked immediately but he wasn't having any of what I wanted. He captured each of my hands in each of his own and pinned them to the bed by my head one by one, his forehead resting against mine as he pressed me into the mattress and let me know without words that we were doing things his way and I'd just have to deal with it.

As if I'd ever complain.

"Oh Elena there you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

I jumped about nine feet in the air, Caroline's voice cutting viscerally through my thoughts of Damon.

I turned to find her standing at the other end of the dock by the rails. I was so absorbed I hadn't even heard her approach from the house or her car pulling up in the driveway.

"Hey Care. How did you know I was here?" I hadn't told anyone I was coming to the lake house. I'd wanted a few hours alone to cope with everything without everyone looking to help or ask questions or offer solutions that wouldn't work. I just wanted to grieve the separation from Damon in peace. And then figure out a way around it because I missed him fiercely.

"GPS. I had my mom track your phone," she said without the slightest hint of apology as she made her way down towards me. I should've been annoyed but it was nice to know she was worried enough to hunt me down and make sure I was okay. And not just physically.

When she reached the foot of the dock she plopped down next to me, tucking her wavy buttery blonde hair behind her ear before looking at me with curious concern. "So. What are you doing up here all by yourself? Everyone's been worried."

"Everyone?" I couldn't keep myself from asking. I had to know if by everyone she meant _everyone_. Did they call him when they couldn't find me? Was he sitting at the boarding house, downing a glass of bourbon and waiting to hear if I was okay? Did he even care?

What am I thinking. Of course he cares. Of course if something was wrong with me he'd come running to help regardless of the moratorium he'd put on our relationship.

I still had to know.

"Yes everyone. Even Damon if that's what you're asking. Although he definitely wasn't happy that you disappeared and forced us to drag him into a manhunt for you."

I sighed in irritation at that. "You didn't have to institute a manhunt Caroline, I just needed some space," I tried to say as patiently as possible. It gets old being the focus of people's constant anxiety just because your life is always in danger. I can take care of myself. A three hour sojourn up to the lake shouldn't have them all on high alert.

Although I guess the last time I disappeared my body was being taken over by a five hundred year old psychopath with delusions of grandeur and a dangerous survival instinct.

"I understand you need space but things are pretty crazy right now don't you think? You can't just fall off the face of the earth when the travelers are prowling around trying to get at you and Stefan," she said in her best stern Caroline voice. A voice that always reminded me a bit of a mom reprimanding her child.

I crossed my ankles and swung my feet lightly, sitting on my hands and watching the soft waves of the lake draw ever closer to the posts that support the dock. They seemed to be following a bizarre sort of rhythm. Every wave would first overlap with the preceding one before going a bit further, moving down and to the left, approaching the sun kissed wood of the beam with subtle purpose.

The last time I watched this funny little tango of the lake's tides I was standing in this very spot in which I now sat, blanket wrapped around my shoulders, lamenting Damon's fears about the sire bond as he convened with Jeremy and Bonnie about how to snap Jeremy out of his automatic 'see vampire, kill vampire' hunter reflexes.

I'm such a masochistic. I can't believe I came up here. This place is littered with memories of Damon. Hell, the living room still smells like him from when he stayed here and looked after Jeremy. Something I didn't even ask him to do. He just offered to take care of my brother, teach him to fight, protect him if necessary. And he never asked for anything in return. Just like always.

Dammit why did he have to be so stubborn about this, about us? We may not be together romantically but why couldn't we just be friends? How can he stand this, us being apart and having no relationship at all? Is this really what he wants? No contact ever again just because I told him to let me go?

I can't fucking believe I told him to let me go. There must be something wrong with me. I should've known he'd take it way too literally and blow it out of proportion and make me regret taking a stand at all. I'd have been better off trying to make things work with him again at this rate.

At this point I'm not so sure I shouldn't. As it is we can't realistically avoid each other forever. With the travelers around we will have to see each other to deal with them, to protect the town and stop them from following through with their crazy 1,500 year old spell of magical doom.

Have I mentioned how I much I hate those damn travelers.

"Earth to Elena," Caroline said, cutting through my reverie yet again. "Did you hear what I said?"

"What? No I didn't," I said a little guiltily. I had completely tuned her out in favor of continuing to lament the current state of my non-relationship with Damon.

Somehow I always seemed to be lamenting the status of my something with Damon.

"I know this whole drama, falling out thing with Damon is bumming you out but I kind of need you to focus for a second. We have a problem."

Oh joy. Something was wrong. Just what I needed. More to worry about.

"Now what?" I asked in exasperation, wondering for probably the millionth time when I would wake up and not be faced with a dozen potentially life-threatening problems.

"We figured out what Markos is after. That's why we were trying to find you. We know what he wants with you and Stefan. And the town," she said like I should've been over the moon relieved to hear that we finally had some inkling of the bad guy's plans. I wasn't.

"Okay so what is it?" I demanded when she didn't elaborate.

"It's complicated. I think Bonnie should explain it to you. It has something to do with the Other Side and the witches and the fate of magic and all of this crazy stuff that is somehow all connected. But the gist of it is that it threatens the magic the witches have and the existence of the Other Side. And apparently the travelers need your blood and Stefan's blood to make it all come together. Like the last pieces of the puzzle."

I was so sick of being the last piece of some magical puzzle. First that sacrifice ritual of Klaus's and now this? Did it ever end? Was I just destined to be a blood mule for the rest of my possible eternity on earth?

"Okay that isn't exactly news to me. I thought we already knew that doppelgänger blood was the key to this whole ridiculous traveler spell." I'm sure I sounded bitter. I definitely felt bitter.

"Yeah but there's more to it than that. There's a reason they need the blood of both doppelgängers. And there's a reason they keep trying to draw Stefan and you together. It's supposed to have some effect on the magic in your blood. Make it stronger and enhance the spell I think."

There was no winning here apparently. I was just a pawn in the plans of other people. Of witches and travelers and hybrids. Just because I have magic in my blood. And now they want to force Stefan and I together to give the blood an extra kick? Seriously?

I fucking hate the travelers.


	6. Catching Fire

This is so unbelievably late and I'm ashamed. It will never happen again.

As a reminder, this is another flashback from Elena standing at the quarry holding a stake over Damon's heart. The next chapter will return to the regular narrative.

Do enjoy m'loves.

**Chapter Five: Catching Fire **

"And there will be a fire in our hearts so big not even the oceans will be able to put us out."

I remember when the fire started to burn between us.

It wasn't born of desire or love like you might expect. It wasn't the product of any affection or need.

It was the spawn of hatred. Real hatred, forged from rage and disappointment and indignation.

All because of one mistake.

At the time I assumed it was his mistake. Because he broke my little brother's neck without any hesitation. He was hurt and lost and angry and drunk beyond belief. And he snapped.

I know, because I watched it happen. And also because after two years I'm certain I caused it.

Stefan's immediate reaction was that Katherine had driven him over the edge. That she'd said or done something to unravel what good and humanity had started to surface over the months he'd been in Mystic Falls.

But even then I knew it wasn't her. He'd already lost her before she ever came to town. And he'd already begun to cope with the loss. To grieve and move on to different things like anyone would after such a vicious heartbreak.

Of course Damon isn't just anyone. His version of moving on didn't involve any kind of self awareness or enlightenment. He didn't move on to some inner peace within himself that would open the door for a better relationship down the road.

He moved on to me. Immediately. In fact looking back, I'd argue he'd started to fall for me before he even found out that Katherine had abandoned him and led him on for over a century.

Which is how I know it was my fault that Damon snapped that night.

Katherine upset him and put him in a dangerous emotional situation to be sure. The blame can rest with her just as easily as it can me or Damon.

But I know it was my rejection, my claims that it would always be Stefan and never be him that finally pushed him too far.

In hindsight, I could have handled the situation differently. Yes he was crossing lines and invading my space and telling me things I simply refused to hear, but I knew he'd been upset even before he showed up in my room plastered and dejected.

And I have no idea what possessed me to think bringing Stefan into the conversation would help at all. In my mind I'd just been saying what I considered the truth. I cared about Damon but I would always love Stefan.

The problem is, at seventeen and dangerously, humanly naive, I was in no position to make claims like that about Stefan. It had only been a few months. There were still things about both Stefan and Damon that I didn't know. Things that could fill several books, each one thicker than a dictionary.

Things that would change everything I thought I knew about them and myself.

But at the time I couldn't even attempt to formulate the notion of Damon and me in my head. Not romantically. I just didn't see him that way. That wasn't an option for us. It wouldn't be, couldn't be, no matter how he felt.

As if.

I was so ignorant. So blind. So young.

I had no idea what was really going on with Damon and me. I had no idea that our friendship was a gateway to more. Much more than I ever anticipated.

I should have known or at least suspected. Especially after that night.

Because even though I fought him and denied him at every turn as he made these grand proclamations of how I was lying and he and I had something, deep down some part of me recognized his statements and advances as the truth.

It wasn't that I didn't love Stefan. I did with all my heart. I thought he was it for me.

But there _was_ something happening with Damon. Something I couldn't identify because it was beyond my realm of experience and knowledge. Something intimate and passionate and primal.

It happened below the surface, in the hidden crevices of my heart and mind and soul. He seemed to permeate any part of me that Stefan had not already filled. And apparently what Stefan had not claimed of my heart and soul was a lot more than I knew.

Which means Damon was right that night. He was right when he told me there was something going on between us. He was right when he told me I was lying.

I just didn't know I was lying.

But how could I possibly have understood the real nature of my friendship with Damon? How could I have taken what we'd built between us since that day in Georgia as anything more than simple affection?

The truth is that I couldn't let myself look at it any differently than a normal, platonic friendship. Because he terrified me. Even before he showed up unannounced and nearly took my brother from me permanently, he scared the shit out of me.

Not because I ever believed he would hurt me. I knew he wouldn't. I knew, in fact, that he _couldn't. _

I didn't fear his supernatural prowess or overwhelming impulses or lack of any boundaries whatsoever. I wasn't afraid of his very recent serial killer past or his incessant inappropriate commentary or his inability to indulge his emotions around anyone but me.

It wasn't really him that I was afraid of. It was how he made me feel.

I was frighteningly unnerved by the emotions he could incite in me. Emotions so intense and passionate and raw they threatened to steal what remained of my already tenuous sanity.

I'd never met anyone who could challenge and infuriate and horrify and exhilarate and unbalance me like Damon. Sometimes all at once.

And never more so than that night in my room.

He challenged everything I thought I knew about myself when he claimed I was lying about us.

He infuriated the hell out of me when he told me I was essentially in denial about him and Stefan.

He horrified me like never before when he tried to force the truth of it on me.

He exhilarated me beyond my wildest imaginings when he touched my face in that way of his.

He unbalanced my world when he looked at me like I had the power to save or destroy him.

I chose to destroy him. Why, I'll never truly understand.

In many ways my words that night were just as impulsive as his actions. And it cost us something beautiful. Temporarily that is.

We'd developed a close bond in such a short space of time that cutting him off was more difficult than I expected, even after what he did.

Yes I was absolutely furious with him in ways I've never been with any other person before. He tends to bring that out in people after all.

But regardless of my completely justified hatred and rage I couldn't shake the affection I felt for him. I denied it at every turn to him and everyone else for weeks, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. And that it didn't make it's presence known all those times his life was in danger.

No matter how much I despised him I would never have let him die. I couldn't.

I may have told him he'd lost me forever. I may have even thought I meant it.

That didn't mean the reverse was true. That didn't mean I could handle losing him.

It was unfair of me, I suppose, to have such a double standard. To want nothing to do with him yet expect him to stay around in the periphery of my life in case I needed him. Things might have been different if I'd been able to shake that secret dependance on him.

But that was never going to happen. Because he'd stoked my fire.

It had been simmering below the surface with us since the day (and night) we'd met. The fire had always been there, even when he was every inch the monster at the start of my junior year.

We'd ignored it for as long as we could. We'd both denied it's very existence, it's flaming presence in our relationship and how it would flare up at just the slightest provocation.

Until he finally forced me to acknowledge it was there. Until I found him sitting on my bed and he turned my universe upside down and sideways by letting that blazing inferno out into the open.

He saw our potential long before I did. He sensed we could be more if I was open to it.

I didn't. I didn't sense it and I refused to see it. It was wrong. For him, for me, for everyone.

I felt it though. There was no pretending anymore after that night. He threw a gallon of fuel and a stack of matches onto the brush fire we'd been sharing and turned it into a damn wildfire.

And fire like ours can't be tamed by the likes of epic first loves and steadfast denial.

Once I gave in — and I did even if it wasn't in the way he wanted — I set us on a course we could never deviate from. Once I indulged our fire by fanning the flames of my rage induced hatred of him there was no turning back.

We were always going to end up like this, combining our fiery natures and turning it into a blaze powerful enough to wipe out the earth.

It's a dangerous way to live, and especially to love. It's uncontrollable and all consuming and brutal like nothing else in the world. But it's much worse, and much more destructive, if we fight it.

Which is how we got in this impossible position in the first place. Because we didn't learn from our mistakes the first dozen times. We continue to fight what burns between us even though we know the irreparable damage it can cause.

This never would have happened if we hadn't tried to pretend we could exist apart. And now I may be forced to live apart from him permanently. Because I didn't trust in my instincts about us.

Because I tried to tame our fire, knowing as I did that it is beyond anyone's control.

And when the light goes out of those brilliant blue eyes, I'll have no one to blame but myself.


End file.
